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"Who?" I cried. "What! You don't mean to say--was that Lieutenant Ferry?"

"Don't you like him?"

"Well, say; maybe you'll tell us who this is we're about to meet up with."

A familiar friendship lighted every countenance but mine as this second pair turned and rode with us, the lieutenant in front on Sergeant Jim Longley's right, and the two privates with me between them behind. For some minutes the sergeant, in under-tone, made report to his young superior. Then in a small clearing he turned abruptly into a neighborhood road, and at his word my two companions pricked after him westward. I closed up beside the lieutenant; he praised the weather, and soon our talk was fluent though broken, as we moved sometimes at a trot and often faster. In stolen moments I scanned him with the jealousy of my youth. Five feet, ten; humph! I was five, nine and a thirty-second. In weight he looked to be just what I always had in mind in those prayers without words with which I mounted every pair of commissary scales I came to. The play of his form as our smooth-gaited horses sped through the flecking shades was worth watching for its stanch and supple grace. Alike below the saddle and above it he was as light as a leaf and as firm as a lance. I had long yearned to own a pair of shoulders not too square for beauty nor too sloping for strength, and lo, here they were, not mine, but his. No matter; the slender mustache he sported he was welcome to, I had shaved off nearly as good a one; wished now I hadn't. As once or twice he lifted his képi to the warm breeze I took new despair from the soft locks of darkest chestnut that lay on his head in manly order, ready enough to curl but waiving the privilege.

"Yet what?" I snapped out, with horse eyes.

"But, o-oh! sir!" exclaimed the trio, when Miss Harper waved them to forbear. There was yet some daylight left as we trundled into a broad highroad and turned northward. We passed a picket guard and then a whole regiment of cavalry going into camp. They scrambled to the sides of the road and stormed us with questions, chaffing us cruelly when I remained silent. "Lawd! look a' this-yeh Yank a-bringin' in ow desertehs!" "Hey, you big Yank, you jest let that po' little conscrip' go!"

"Pardon me, I know better. This is his scheme." She laid her free hand on our two. "Tell me you will not go to that house!"

She became frigid. "Do you know who and what Charlotte Oliver is?--No? Well, to begin with, she's a married woman--but pshaw! you believe nothing till it's proved. If I tell you who and what I am will you do what I've asked you; will you promise not to stop at Lucius Oliver's house?" She softly reached for my hand and pressed and stroked it. "Don't stop there, dear. Oh, say you will not!"

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